<p>I know this question has been ask many times but I think my situation is a tad different. I took Calc AB junior year (received A's both semester and 5 on the AP exam) but took a year off from calculus and took stats. I am wondering if it is wise to take Math 1A (AB equivalent, right?) fall 09 then 1B spring '10. If I take 1B, I could kill two birds with one stone and wouldn't need to take another math class spring semester (leaving more options for other pre-requisites for Haas). However, I do not want to be overwhelmed by 1B since I've only started to review the basics of calculus this past week. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.</p>
<p>HelloAll, you are very smart for asking this question and I’m going to tell you about my experience.</p>
<p>I took AB in my senior yr and got into Cal as a math major. I got a 4 on the AP exam but I didn’t really care as I tried to take 1B over the summer at a very competitive CC. I could have passed the summer class and skipped to 1B but I realized something. Most HS math programs are very superficial, particularly the AP classes since the goal is to have the students pass the AP exam. Many students can pass the exam but I doubt they really understand the material. I have contacted many people about this and I ultimately dropped my summer class and decided to enroll in 1A. I know that I am one year behind but for me as a math major, I need to really learn the material in order to move on. I heard that 1B may be the hardest math course out of all the lower division math courses. I am not sure if you want to take the heroic path and just jump into there. Although I am behind, I still ask myself “what’s the rush if you can’t handle it?” You have to think about the risk you are taking and check out the professors who are teaching the 1B course in the fall. The avg GPA I believe for one professor is 2.5. Since you want to get into Hass you really have to consider what you are in for if you take 1B. If you want, we can chat talk about this privately because I understand how frustrated you must feel about this. I was stressed out for 2 whole weeks thinking about this.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing your experience CMM. I also feel that my class wasn’t as in-depth as it could have been but I guess I didn’t mind it back then. However, with a year off, I am far and away not on top of my game (calculus-wise) and even if I was, I’m not sure how well I’d do with my knowledge of AB. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if this will change anything but I’ll be entering as a FPF student so perhaps the 1B class is a bit easier? I’m still somewhat leaning towards the 1A for Fall. Thanks again.</p>
<p>I would say that if you care about your GPA, take the easiest math class you can get away with (this includes the Math 16 series). But that’s just my two cents. :)</p>
<p>in FPF the math teachers (Professor Smith/Bourgoin) for 1B have excellent reviews so I’m wondering if I should get Math 1B out of the way with a guaranteed quality professor rather than struggle on campus. I’m in the same position as HelloAll. If we’re not math majors, do we really need the theory and proofs in Math 1A?</p>
<p>Well, I’ll guess I’ll share my experience to give you an idea. In my junior year I took AP Stats and then in my senior year I took AP Calc and got As and a 5. Thus, I went and signed up for Math 1B with Wilkening last fall. My first week in Math 1B, however, I felt really stressed and overwhelmed because the professor told us on the first day of class we needed to know delta-epsilons, Newton’s Method, cosh, sinh, tanh, and some other stuff from Math 1A. He also assigned his Math 1A final from last semester as a homework assignment and told us if we struggled on it then we should go back to Math 1A. I felt immensely stressed because, well, I don’t recall learning half of the stuff he said we should have learned in Math 1A (Due to senioritis, I slept through my high school calc course.) and I thought his past Math 1A final was difficult at the time. Thus, I made the decision to retake Math 1A, but I had a friend who was in the same boat who decided to tough it out in this professor’s class and she did fairly well. I also had a friend from the same school who took AP Calc junior year and AP Stats senior year who also decided to stay in Math 1B and he did fairly well too. In retrospect, I realize the professor was probably using some scare tactics or whatever to intimidate people to drop, but I felt I made the right decision because I learned so much from retaking Math 1A.</p>
<p>Edit: Theory and proofs are fun in my personal opinion which is why I really appreciated my Math 1A professor. In general, most professors feel somewhat obligated as a mathematician to teach their students some amount of theory and proofs even in a more computational course. No, you won’t need the math theory and proofs for your major if you’re not a math major, but you can bet your future math professors will bring up theories and proofs you learned in Math 1A since the calculus series tends to build up on itself. Just when you thought you said goodbye to the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus in Calc AB/Math 1A you’ll be seeing it again in higher dimensions in Multivariable Calc/Math 53 if you need to go that far. If you don’t think you’ll need any theory or proofs at all for you major or your own satisfaction, then you really should just go take the Math 16 series.</p>
<p>I see that there is a lot of emphasis on picking the right professors. What’s Paul Vojta like? He’s teaching this fall in Math 1b … i think last semester he taught 54. Are his grading curves harsh?</p>